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Italy,
however, was prostrated under sufferings heavier and more terrible than the
evils of war. The soldiers of Vitellius, dispersed through the municipal
towns and colonies, were robbing and plundering and polluting every place
with violence and lust. Everything, lawful or unlawful, they were ready to
seize or to sell, sparing nothing, sacred or profane. Some persons under the
soldiers' garb murdered their private enemies. The soldiers themselves, who
knew the country well, marked out rich estates and wealthy owners for
plunder, or for death in case of resistance; their commanders were in their
power and dared not check them. Cæcina indeed was not so rapacious as
he was fond of popularity; Valens was so notorious for his dishonest gains
and peculations that he was disposed to conceal the crimes of others. The
resources of Italy had long been impaired, and the
presence of so vast a force of infantry and cavalry, with the outrages, the
losses, and the wrongs they inflicted, was more than it could well
endure.